Martin Wins Final Stage of Tour de Romandie; Froome Wins Overall

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Team Omega Pharma-Quick Step's Tony Martin on his way to victory in stage 5 of Tour de Romandie 2013 OPQS / Tim de Waele

Martin Wins Final Stage of Tour de Romandie; Froome Wins Overall

Chris Froome (Sky) has won the Tour of Romandy 2013. The Briton claimed the overall win after Stage 6, a flat, 18.7-km individual time trial in Geneva, in which he finished third. World time trial champion Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) won the stage in 21:07, with Adriano Malori (Lampre-Merida) taking second at 0:15 and Froome finishing third at 0:33.

Martin snatched the lead from Malori and waited to see what Froome could do. The Sky man could not overtake Martin or Malori, but he rode solidly enough to nail down his overall win. Rui Costa (Movistar), who began the day in third overall, withstood a challenge from Tom Danielson (Garmin-Sharp) to keep his podium place, while Simon Spilak (Katusha), whose victory in Stage 5 made him the overall runnerup, rode fifth in the time trial to keep that place.

Martin began the Tour of Romandy with GC aspirations, but set his sights lower after Stage 5. “I came to the Tour of Romandy to try to make a good result in the GC,” he said, “but maybe it was a bit of a mistake to attack yesterday in the mountain stage. I lost my chance to be in the top 10, so I focused on today’s time trial."

"I knew the parcours was perfect for me today. The course was not complicated. It was totally flat, so I was able to give 100 percent right from the start because there was no mountain or any technical parts that can make a big difference. So, you have to keep a steady, good speed from the beginning, and I did that. I am happy with my win today.”

For his part, Froome was happy to win the race, but the Tour of Romandy was part of his buildup to the Tour de France. “It has been a really good week for us. I am really happy with my condition now in the buildup to the Tour de France,” the Sky man said.

“This week, I couldn’t have done it without the help of a really strong team around me. Every day since the prologue, they have protected me and kept me at the front of the race. I owe it to them this week.

“Every race I do now is a good test for me, to see exactly where my condition is and what I need to work on. It has been a really good experience for me this week.

“It is definitely a good omen, but the Tour de France is still two months away, and I need to do a lot of hard training before then.”

Many of the riders in the Tour of Romandy will ride the Giro d’Italia, which begins this Saturday. Others, such as Froome, used the race to test their fitness in the runup to the Tour de France. How will these riders do in the next two months? Check in at www.roadcycling.com and find out!

Tour de Romandie winner Christopher Froome is using the premium version of the RoadCycling.com training tracker software to track and plan his training. Want the same advantage as Froome? Sign up for the premium version here. It will also give you easy login access to your training data from all pages here on RoadCycling.com.